The Science Fiction Hall of Fame Volume I edited by Robert Silverberg - Book Report #167

I've decided to collect all the reviews of each individual story from this anthology into one post.

This may make it easier to read my thought on the book instead of trying to search out each story from the blog.

Fun fact:  I started to read this book in August of 2012.  That's right, it took me nearly five years to get through it.

A Martian Odyssey by Stanley G. Weinbaum

Twilight by John W. Campbell

Helen O'Loy by Lester del Rey

The Roads Must Roll by Robert A. Heinlein

Microcosmic God by Theodore Sturgeon

Nightfall by Isaac Asimov

The Weapon Shop by A. E. van Vogt

Mimsy Were the Borogoves by Lewis Padgett

Huddling Place by Clifford D. Simak

Arena by Fredric Brown

First Contact by Murray Leinster

That Only A Mother by Judith Merril

Scanners Live in Vain by Cordwainer Smith

Mars is Heaven! by Ray Bradbury

The Little Black Bag

Born of Man and Woman by Richard Matheson

Coming Attraction by Fritz Leiber

The Quest For Saint Aquin by Anthony Boucher

Surface Tension by James Blish

The Nine Billion Names of God by Arthur C. Clarke

It's A Good Life by Jerome Bixby

The Cold Equations by Tom Godwin

Fondly Fahrenheit by Alfred Bester

The Country of the Kind by Damon Knight

Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes

A Rose for Ecclesiastes by Roger Zelazny

A Rose for Ecclesiastes by Roger Zelazny

A poet laureate is sent to Mars to translate ancient religious Martian texts.

While he is there he discovers the fate of the inhabitants and falls in love with one.

Through his experience he finds his humanity.

The poet, who was also the narrator, was an unlikable person; difficult and arrogant.

To be honest the story did not work for me.  I simply found myself uninterested in this character.

Roger Zelazny - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Zelazny#Bibliography

Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes

This is a real hart-ripper.

Charlie is a mentally challenged adult working as a janitor in a factory.

One day he has the opportunity to have an operation that will make him smart.

Throughout the story he is compared to a  lab mouse, Algernon, who has had the same operation before Charlie.

You already know how this will go; whatever happens to the mouse eventually happens to Charlie.

The story was gentle, hopeful and tragic.

It was a terrific read.

But now I feel I need a breath of fresh air.

Daniel Keyes - http://www.danielkeyesauthor.com/dksbio.html

And - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Keyes

The Country of the Kind by Damon Knight

This was a quick and odd little one.

In a society where violence and cruelty have been eliminated (genetically, I suppose) what does a community do with a person who has crossed a line that is incomprehensible and thought to have been left generations behind?

Our narrator committed an act of violence as a result of passionate youthful emotion.  But because cruelty has been eliminated from society they could not imprison him and instead set him free.

He as genetically altered so as not to be able to commit the same kind of crime again but in crafting their sentence they inflicted a subtler kind of cruelty.

In the story we get to see how our narrator has adapted and learned to cope with his unique situation.

It was not one of my favourites but writing this post has helped me to understand it better.

It was certainly thought-provoking.

Damon Knight

Respawn by Hiroshi Sakurazaka

48/150/2016

This was a terrific read.

Written by the guy who wrote the novel that became the movie Edge of Tomorrow.

Here Sakurazaka takes the same premise; becoming reborn the instant you die but puts the mind of the narrator in the body of the person who kills his previous self.

It was a mind-twisting notion as the narrator continues to inhabit new bodies he also inherits their lives.

I simply loved the story, however I did not understand the ending.  Since it was such a fun ride to the last sentence I really did not care if the ending did not live up to the rest.

It was wonderfully imaginative.

Hopscotch by Karl Schroeder

47/150/2016

Linda is a researcher who had discovered how to predict the unpredictable.  She tracks down freak storms, UFO sightings and strange disappearances.

Alan is her boyfriend who accompanies her on her quests.

The trouble is that he tries to keep Linda safe but she is a force to be reckoned with.  Poor Alan is in over his head but he does try his best.

The story worked for me because of just how hard Alan was trying to contribute and keep up.

Karl Schroeder - http://www.kschroeder.com/

The Cold Equations by Tom Godwin

46/150/2016

I was not looking forward to reading this again.

It is so well written and stands the test of time so well that every word filled me with terror.

I've reviewed this once before, see it HERE and I have listened to it in podcast form.  Any way you slice this it is an exceptional example of hard science fiction.

A young girl stows away on an Emergency Dispatch Ship to surprise her brother who is on the same planet as the ship is headed.

Not knowing there are strict limitations to the payload aboard these EDS, when she is discovered the sad, lonely, cold truth of it comes bearing down.

This story is head and shoulders at the peak of the form.


My heart raced the whole time I read it even though I knew what was going to happen next.

This makes me want to search out other stories by Godwin.

NPC by Charles Yu

45/150/2016

This was an interesting story that worked well on a couple levels.

Life of our narrator is "in game," living as a character in a MMORPG.  Having never played a massive multiplayer online roleplaying game I can imagine how a person can become stuck in a rut.

It is an actual rut that gets our hero out of his.

But then the author deepens the story by exploring the emotional consequences of leveling up.

It was a very good read.  Yu obviously has real talent.

God Mode by Daniel H. Wilson - A Short Story Review

42/150/2016

This was a trippy little exploration of the interpretation of reality.

A young couple meet and fall for each other.  Meanwhile, strange things are happening all around them.  The stars are winking out, one by one.  Details of the city are turning grey.

And then there is a strange voice.

Nicely done.  I enjoyed my time with this story.

Daniel H. Wilson - http://www.danielhwilson.com/

Daniel H. Wilson

The Nine Billion Names of God by Arthur C. Clarke - A Short Story Review

41/150/2016

The high lama of Tibet needs a computer to churn out every possible name of God.

Why?

Well, that doesn't matter when you can sell a new Mark V computer.

It's not long before we find out why and the results are very interesting.

Clarke had a knack.

This anthology continues to delight.

Muffin Explains Teleology to the World at Large by James Alan Gardner - A Short Story Review

40/150/2016

I really liked this story.

An odd little girl, Muffin, has knowledge of the future and strangers come to the house to get her guidance.

Meanwhile her uncle and brother try to make sense of her.

She is a good girl and has plans for the future.

I was very interested in knowing more about Muffin which kept me reading.

There was also a gentleness to the story that made me feel like everything was going to be all right in the end.

It's not Science Fiction.  Perhaps speculative fiction?  I really don't know what that means.

Urban Fantasy seems to fit.  Let's call it that.  But there's no magic or supernatural elements.

I know, let's just call it a good story.

James Alan Gardner's website - http://www.jamesalangardner.com/Welcome.html

Carpe Diem by Eileen Kernaghan - A Short Story Review

39/150/2016

I am Canadian.

Why am I not reading more stories from Canada?

I dug out this collection from On-Spec magazine.  You know, I've purchased many issues of the magazine and I am sure I haven't read even one.  They are all in a shoe box in my basement.  I think I will have to take a run at them.

This story was an odd one, with a twist ending that left me scratching my head.

We follow a group of senior women who are being monitored for something.  Blood tests, and all kinds of medical checkups are being performed regularly.

We are never told why.

But if you don't make the cut....

Eileen Kernaghan's website - http://www.eileenkernaghan.ca/index.html

How to Become a Mars Overlord by Catherynne M. Valente - Lightspeed Magazine

 38/150/2016

Great title.

But I found this one to be rather odd.

The author has a love of space opera and ancient mythology.

Take those two genres and fold them into a promotional/professional development seminar and you get a feel for how the story is presented.

Don't get me wrong, it was fun and I loved the author's sentences.  There is a real love of grandiose language that I found quite entertaining.

I just don't know how to label it.  Perhaps that is what makes it good.  I have not run into anything quite like it before.

Surface Tension by James Blish - A Short Story Review

37/150/2016

The story begins with a crashed seed-ship on a new world that was meant to be a new human colony.

With the ship smashed and the cargo nearly destroyed the captain an crew come up with an inventive way of completing their mission.

The story then moves a pivotal moment in the history of these new life forms the human created.

I was, at first instantly bored by the story, it was just another "look how strange my aliens are" tale.  But then a very human adventure began and a familiar story of evolution repeated itself on this new world.

In the end I found the story to be very interesting indeed.

I kept reminding my self of what the influential editor, Gardner Dozois once said; "The nice thing about short stories, even the bad ones, is that they are short."  (Or something along those lines.)

This kept me reading and I am happy I did.

It awoke the sense of wonder of how incredibly big this story was.

Terrific.  A highlight of the collection.

Amaryllis by Carrie Vaughn - A Short Story Review

36/150/2016

This was another podcast of one of issue #1 of Lightspeed magazine.

The story was lovely.

Was it post apocalyptic?  Who knows.  Society is certainly different than it is today; much more planned and community centered.

It was a joy to listen to as Gabrielle De Cuir had a wonderful delivery.  She captured the emotion of the piece. 

This was a story about people, their past and letting go of it. 

The future demands it.

Wonderful.

Dinosaur Killers by Chris Kluwe - A Short Story Review

35/150/2016

What would it be like to witness the annihilation of Earth from your perch, in orbit, on a space station?

Here the narrator is trying to make sense of it and decide what he should do next, when a voice from another station asks, "Where are the others?"

The sentences are choppy.  The narration stuttered.  As we try to grasp with what it all means.

It is a unique view of a post apocalyptic world.

I liked it.

It sure makes you think.

The Quest For Saint Aquin by Anthony Boucher - A Short Story Review

34/150/2016

A post apocalyptic story of a priest on a mission to find the tomb of St. Aquin.

It is a strange journey through the fringes of the blasted landscape of the western coast of America.

The role of religion has changed.  Technology has progressed.  Attitudes may not have.

Interesting friends are made and the ultimate discovery needs contemplation.

It's not surprising that there are so many dystopian entries in this volume; we are only five or six years post World War II and the Cold War is dominating public thought.

As I work my way through the pages I find myself sighing whenever I come across this kind of story.

I read them, and they are all excellent, it's just I miss the sense of wonder that I like best about science fiction.

In any case it was a good story and I felt it would have made a damn good novel.  I liked Father Thomas and felt he was good company in this strange environment.

Hard Cover

Paperback

Anthony Boucher

 

I'm Alive, I Love You, I'll See You In Reno by Vylar Kaftan - A Short Story Review

33/150/2015

I decided to go as far back as the Lightspeed podcast archives would allow me.

Right to the beginning, as it turns out.

This was an expression of love as told through physics.

Such an inventive idea.

I liked it.

Vylar Kaftan - https://vylarkaftan.com/

Coming Attraction by Fritz Leiber - A Short Story Review

31/150/2016

Set in a post World War Three United States, we follow a British man visiting what is left of New York city.

While on the street he intervenes to help a young woman from an attempted hit and run.

From that moment on we are treated to a story that reveals how much American society has changed.

It was so strange that it reminded me of the Judge Dredd series.

The protagonist does his best to help the woman but circumstances are much more complicated than first thought.

It was a good story but the open-ended conclusion left me wanting a bit more.

Fritz Leiber

Galaxy Science Fiction - November 1950

Born of Man and Woman by Richard Matheson - A Short Story Review

30/150/2016

This was a horrid little tale.

By that I simply mean the writing was crisp and brought me right into that little, terrible basement where the story takes place.

It was stark and unapologetic and brilliantly written.  But, being confronted with the cold hatred of the two antagonists, made me hate being human.

The author had skills to make me feel so strongly in only three and a half pages.

Excellent read.

It will stay with you.